Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 76 Entries. Thursday, April 1 View Page Here is a pic of my 765 from last year grown off the 1004. I put this picture first to help me stay motivated through out the early part of the season knowing there are some orange beauties to come. I would like to thank all growers who gave or traded seeds with me this year!! Mission statement for 2010: To grow 4 plants, 2 for color, 2 for size with the chance of color. I want to top 1000lbs anything more will be a bonus. I want to have 1 orange beauty anything more will be a bonus. I have acquired some very good genetics for this season. If luck and mother nature are on my side this year, I should be able to reach my goals!!! GOOD LUCK GROWING IN 2010! Friday, April 2 View Page What a way to start out the 2010 growing season. The weather has been warm for march which is a good thing considering we got bombed with snow this winter. Last week of march and first week of April has been in the 70's and 80's. I went out on a limb here and plated 6 big boy tomato plants on April 2end I set it up so i can put a row cover over them on frost nights. Tuesday, April 13 View Page Tilled the Patch today, The main patch is going to be about 1900 sq ft I will have to remeasure for exact dimensions, I plan on putting 3 plants in this area. The cover crop of winter rye was about 2ft, I mowed it down, and tilled it in green. I added all amendments prior to tilling it in. I had to make 2 passes to fully incorporate the rye in. I will post later with the amendments and amounts added this year. Tuesday, April 13 View Page I also plan on adding a second patch which will be about 600 sq ft and I plan on putting two plants in there, I am going to try this smaller area with increased ferts. and see how it works out. Tuesday, April 13 View Page I should note that I added about 100 lbs of dolomite lime and 40 lbs of gypsum in march, I applied it right over the winter rye and it did not burn the rye at all. This was applied to the 1900 sq ft patch. (main patch) Monday, May 10 View Page Well the weather turned on me this past week or so. We have had to pretty good frosts back to back this past weekend, low of 29 one night. I have been holding back planting due to this cold spell, forcast is 50s and rain for the next few days. Monday, May 10 View Page 765 Guns transplanted outside. Tuesday, May 11 View Page I transplanted the 765 Guns yesterday in the patch. I went a little over board with the mycor. and added about 12oz to the planting hole, figuring this area has the longest amount of time to colonize and from what I have read it takes 6-8 weeks to start to build up a colony of fungi, so I figure the more the better by the crown of the plant. Also as a note I added mycor. to all seedling pots this year. I watered the 765 seedling in with a gallon of warm seaweed water 1oz/gal. Friday, May 14 View Page I don't remember if it was the 13 or 14 of May I transplanted my other plants into the patch. I was holding out to transplant due to the super cold nights. Friday, June 4 View Page Applied 4oz of Bayer T&S 1.47 Imploid to 5 gal of water. soil drench around the stump area. (about 3ft radius) Wednesday, June 16 View Page Foliar spray of Ortho Max (bifen) Sprayed top and bottom of leaves, stems, and vines. (FIRST ORTHO MAX SPRAY OF THE SEASON) I plan on spraying ortho max about every 7-10 days depending on weather and insect pressure. Friday, June 18 View Page Foliar spray of Nutri-Aid bloom buster 0-52-34---2tablespoons/gal, also combined with this spray was a amino acid bio-activator 15-0-0---1 tablespoon/gal. This is the second application of this the previous application was about a week prior to this one around the 10th or 11th. I timed these two sprays for these dates to hopefully increase my females on the plants. I will not apply this again until later in the season after I have fruits set and growing for a while. I have also applied 3 soil drenches to the stump and main vine areas. The soil drenches where of: Fish 2-4-1---1 oz/2gal Seaweed---1 oz/2gal Humic acid---1 tablespoon/2gal Molasses 2oz/2gal (applied twice) All these where mixed together into two gallons of water and soil drenched. I plan too start foliar spaying this after fruit set. Friday, June 18 View Page NOTE: The only ferts applied prior to the vines laying down were seaweed @ 1 oz to a gal. (Warm water) 1 time week in may. Sunday, July 18 View Page Been Really busy this year keeping up with everything, I am going to post all of my past pest/fung applications up to this point for reference in the future. Applied 4 oz of Bayer T&S on May 31 Sprayed Ortho Max Foliar June 16 Applied 5 oz of Bayer T&S on June 27 Sprayed Ortho Max Foliar on June 26 Sprayed Ortho Max Foliar on July 5 Sprayed Immunox 2% Mycoutanail on July 12 (First Spray of the season) Due on 7/26 Sprayed Ortho Max Foliar on July 14 Note: I waited long then I would like to have wanted to spray the Immunox but I did want want to spray in the extreme heat wave we had: July 4: 90, July 5: 94, July 6: 95, July 7: 95, July 8:95, July 9: 92 6 days in a row in the 90s I can't remember the last time we had 6 days in a role in the 90's. It was also 90 td as well. Sunday, July 18 View Page Plant Information I want to add more size into the patch this year so I went with a couple crosses with some big size genetics that have a chance of going orange. I am also growing my 765 from last year hoping it will throw a orange beauty. MY plants this year are as follows: 1544 Reiver 09: (1385 Jutras x 1161 Rodonis) 1236 C.Harp 09: (998 Pukos x 1385 Jutras) 765 Guns 09:(1004 Mohr x 1102 Pukos) Orange/Great shape 1004 Mohr 08:(772 Poirier x 1317.5 Rose) Orange Note: I wanted to grow the 1102 Pukos again this year but out of 16 seeds started the 1102 was the only one not to germinate! 15 of 16 I'll take that any day. Note: I started 8 765s and had 100% germ. rate on them. Sunday, July 18 View Page Pollination information: 1.1544 @ about 14 feet Pollinated by two 1236 males on June 25 94 degrees 2.765 @ about 14 feet pollinated by three 1236 males June 28 84 degrees 3.1236 @ about 15 feet Pollinated by three 1004 males June 28 82 degrees Sunday, July 18 View Page 1544 Looking like a beauty Queen.... This one really surprised be it is 23 days old td and is starting to orange up already, I really did not expect this much orange out of this one. I grew it for the size genetics with a chance of going orange and it looks like I have the orange coming now I just need the size. This fruit is growing very well for me right now and is starting to ramp up daily gains. Day 20: 74-50.5-49=173.5 ott Est: 121lbs Day 23: 89-58-56=203 ott est: 187lbs three day gain of 66lbs 3 day avg. is 22lbs a day. Note: I fertilized for the first time since a bout a week before pollination this past friday. I did a soil drench of Fish/seaweed/humic acid/molasses. 3 gallons around the stump area. I plan doing a foliar fert this evening. Sunday, July 18 View Page 765 Guns Day 20 today: 75.5-56.5-53= 185 ott est. 144 lbs. This fruit has a very nice wheel shape, not a good one for holding weight, but a shape I like for looks as you can see this fruit is hard yellow, it has not started to go orange yet but I sure hope it follows suit and follows it's family tradition of beautiful orange! Nice Healthy plant, all plants this year except for the 1004 are about 550 sqft. and will take about another week or so to fill in. about half of secs. on plants are dead headed. I had to clip the vine after the fruit on this one due to bad vine position but plan on bringing the last 4 secs down for the octopus shape to fill in the patch. Sunday, July 18 View Page 1236 Day 20 today: 69-50.5-77= 166.5 ott est. 108 lbs. The 1236 came in with some low numbers but I think that is partially due to the fact I had a backup about the same size as it on the first side vine I chopped about 5 days ago. The 1236 does not look like it is gonna go orange, it is a very light yellow right now so we will see what happens. Sunday, July 18 View Page 1004 The 1004 is in the back 40 right up against some pretty thick vegetation, as you can see it took some flac by some type of critter on two different occasions I have been treating the woulds by remove the dirt and hitting with straight daconil. It's a shame i took damage to this one because it is going to be a nice orange. This is a smaller plant maybee about 150-200 sq ft. I am not taking measurements on this one. Sunday, July 18 View Page 1544 Plant. Looking very nice so far. Sunday, July 18 View Page 765 Plant: looking very nice so far. Sunday, July 18 View Page veggies Sunday, July 18 View Page Big boy tomato plants. I planted these on april 2end for some early tomatos and the plan worked I have had tomatos for about 2 weeks now and they are good... Sunday, July 18 View Page -----------Fertilized Folair----------- Friday, July 23 View Page -------------Sprayed Insecticide & Fungicide-------------- First spray together 2 oz of each to the gallon (Ortho &Immunox) Leafs look fine the day after. Monday, July 26 View Page Well I come home yesterday to find this stem split on my 1544. After doing some PI work and some very close Inspecting of the stem split I seen some liquid building up in the hollow part of the stem. So know what I had to do.... I would have to preform surgery on this furit to save it. Note we got bombed with about 3 inches of rain the night before and during the day and this girl prob. just tried to grow to much to quick. Monday, July 26 View Page This is the stem on the 1544 right after surgery. I cut the stem twds. the vine to hopefully reduce the chance of the split going deaper into the pumpkin flesh. I cut a matching slit into the bottom of the stem for drainage, the only problem is the way the fruit is sitting it creates a low spot twds. the fruit that can hold liquid. I soaked up all liquid and applied loads of captan! Monday, July 26 View Page Well, I ran power to the patch and put a fan on it today knowing this is the only chance this thing has to survive, hopefully she will dry up and scar up! Some redneck engineering going on here, the only thing missing is duct tape. Monday, July 26 View Page Side view of the 1544 with the fan blowing 24/7 from here out. JULY 25th was day 30 for the 1544 30 day #s 116.5 - 72 - 68 = 256.5 ott est. 363lbs. Day 20 to 30 ten day average 24.1 lbs a day. 241 lbs for the past ten days. the day the stem split I measured a 30+ pound gain for that day. Monday, July 26 View Page 1236 has kicked into and is growing like a weed on steroids Day 27: 105-75-67 = 247ott est. 325lbs Day 20 to day 27 seven day avg. is 31 lbs a day. This thing is really growing. I measured a 39 lbs one day gain from day 26 to 27. seems to be going to white now, so it looks like it will be a ghost pumpkin, what ever color it is I hope it keeps growing like it is! Monday, July 26 View Page 765 Day 27: 100-74.5-67 =241.5 ott est. 305 lbs day 20 to 27 seven day avg. 23 lbs a day. I am really happy with the numbers my 765 are giving me will see in the next 30 days if it can keep up with the stronger size genetics. Monday, July 26 View Page You can see the 1544 plant is pretty much out of space, I still have 3 more side vines and the main vine going right now, I will dead head the side vines this week. the 765 has about 4 side vines still going, I will prob. have them dead headed in a week. The 1236 still has more space to fill, it should be filled in about a week or so. 5 or 6 vines still running. all plants look really good. The plant I am a little concerned about is the 1236 has some older leaves dying off my the stump area. Monday, July 26 View Page -------------Fertilized Foliar-------------- Wednesday, July 28 View Page Day 30 for The 765 & 1236 Day 30, 765: 107-80-72 = 259 ott EST = 373 lbs Day 20 to 30 ten day avg. 22.9 lbs a day. 10 day total 229 Day 30, 1236: 114-81.5-72 = 267.5 ott EST = 409 lbs Day 20 to 30 ten day avg. 30.1 lbs a day. 10 day total 301 Wednesday, July 28 View Page --------PESTICIDE Applied Bayer T&S 5oz per plant soil drench-------- --------Fertilized Soil Drench ---------- Thursday, July 29 View Page 1544: well the good news, it is still growing and seems to be healing up fine. The 1544 has slowed though since the split, it has avg. 18.3 lbs a day for the past 3 days since the split. total growth since the split 55lbs. Note this weight estimate is from yesterday July 28th. It is now estimated at: 1544 day 33: 123-75-71.5 = 269 ott est. 418 lbs. Sunday, August 1 View Page ------Pesticide----- Sprayed 50/50 ortho max and Immunox together. No sign of PM as of TD. Monday, August 2 View Page ---------Foliar Fertilized--------- Thursday, August 5 View Page 1236 plant As A note: We got dominated by a set of storms that rolled through yesterday evening. I would have to say about 70% of the leafs on the ground, some uprooted vines and so on... The patch looked like a pumpkin growers horror movie last night. The 1236 had leaf pieces plastered to the side of it as if you were trying to paper macshae it with tiny leaf pieces. We got about 3.5 inches of ran as well, down trees on both sides of the house and so on.. Thursday, August 5 View Page Also As a note: Wind Gust 70+ The plus side was no hail! Saturday, August 7 View Page 1236 Well the 1236 has recovered pretty good from the storm damage it received this past Thursday. I was due to fertilize last Thursday but I held off due to the 3.5inches of rain we received. Day 40 1236 Aug 7th. Sat. 139-97-87= 323 ott, est= 710 lbs Day 30 to 40 ten day avg. 30.1 lbs a day. total growth last ten days 301 lbs. The 1236 has avg. 30.1 lbs a day now for the past 20 days. Saturday, August 7 View Page 1544 1544 Day 43 on Aug. 7th 143-84-79= 306 ott, est= 606 lbs. Day 30 to 40 ten day avg = 19.4 lbs a day. Total growth for the ten days 194 lbs. Note: The stem is in pretty good condition 14 days after the split and surgery. The stem is dry I have been brushing out the old captan and reapplying every few days. Nice sunny weather the past few days I have had the tarp pulled back letting the sun bake that stem dry as well. The pumpkin has been stretch marking since about day 30 and it has covered about most of the fruit. Sunday, August 8 View Page 765 765 Day 40 Aug. 7th 122-90.5-80= 292.5 ott, est= 528 lbs day 30 to 40 ten day avg = 15.5 lbs a day 155 lbs total growth for the past ten days. This one has really dropped off on me, it had really nice numbers till day 30 then they just dropped like a rock. The weird thing is everything looks great with this plant, it has the thickest stump, thickest main vine by far, thickest stem, and was the least affected by the storm. Puzzles me, the stump area is about 3 times the size of the 1236 which is generating great numbers. I plan on hitting the 765 with a little more heat over the next ten to see if I can get a positive response from her. Sunday, August 8 View Page 765 to right and 1544 to left. I resumed my fertilizer sched. today. ----------- Fertilized Soil drench ------------- I added in Hollands BB and Fruit Finisher to my soil drenches as of today. Plants look pretty good considering what they went through this past Thursday. No sign of PM yet. Sunday, August 8 View Page 1004 Starting to orange up nice. Tuesday, August 10 View Page -------Foliar fert------- Monday, August 16 View Page -----Fert Soil drench------ Monday, August 16 View Page I misposted the last soil drench date. Here are all of recent applications in one post: Aug 10:Foliar fert. Aug 14: Soil drench Aug 16: Folair seaweed and Bfen & Imunnox Aug 18: Foliar fert. Aug 11: Bfen & Immunox Aug 15: Bayer T&S foliar, bifen along mains (Hit the mains really hard with bayer and bifen. Aug 15: Soil drench bayer T&S 5oz per plant Aug 16: Seaweed ortho and immunox. Note: I found hundreds of disk shaped dark brown to black eggs on the mains/leaf stems/top and bottom of the leafs So I stepped up the spray program to erratic any poss. infestations. Friday, August 20 View Page 1236 Tops The 1K est. mark (Friday) The fruit is in good shape, I did have some splitting around the stem/fruit junction but that is healed and dry now. There is some pretty good pressure coming from the main vine side past the fruit which is putting some pressure on the stem, not really much I can do at this point to correct it. Plant is still looking good, no pm yet, I cleared most of the leafs along the main so I can keep a close eye on it for the final stretch of the season. Friday, August 20 View Page As a note the 1236 is at day 53 when it hit 1K est. Here is a shot of the stem/fruit junction area. Friday, August 20 View Page 1544 At about 8 hundo. This plant still looks good as well and continues to throw loads of new growth, I let a decent about of it fill in some older areas and chopping the rest out about every week or so. Saturday, August 21 View Page 1544 Stem on the 1544, The stem looks good and is actully starting to close itself back up, I want it to stay open so I can keep an eye on the inside so will see what happens. Been real dry here, I have had the tarp off letting that stem bake in the sun. Saturday, August 21 View Page 765 Not sure on the weight, I have not measured it in a while. at day 53 yesterday, not nearly as orange as I would of liked her to be. A very nice wheel shape on this and still packing on the pounds at a slow pace. Plant still looks good as well , and is throwing a lot of new growth. Prob. about 650. Saturday, August 21 View Page Patch shot with the 1236 in front. Plants look really good for this time of year, I am hoping on keeping healthy so I can get some decent late season growth! Saturday, August 21 View Page ------Fert Soil drench------------ Saturday, August 21 View Page LG Here is a couple gourds I have going both past the 100inch mark and still growing, but slowing down. Not sure on the science of LG growing, but The lg's are growing long and thin for me this year, I grew the same two plants last year (95.5 Guns & 111 7/8 lovelace) and they all started getting thick at around the 4ft mark. So Water/ferts/and weather obviously play a big role on growing them long and thin. All 3 of those factors are much different then last year. Sunday, August 22 View Page 1004 Here is a pic of the 1004 I cut it from the vine on the 10th of August and loaded it to take to the county fair. The 1004 taped 407 est. about 42 days old and was grown on about 150 sq ft. As you can see it turned a very nice just orange, if I would of left it on till seasons end it would of prob. been a very deep orange to red. Sunday, August 22 View Page 1004 est. 407 lbs 42 days old. Here is the 1004 at the county fair, very pretty fruit. Here she is with her 1st place ribbon. Sunday, August 22 View Page -------Pesticide--------- Bifen foliar, hit the mains extra hard. Saturday, September 18 View Page Here is the newest member of the Future Pumpkin Growers of America association. Weighing in at a wamping 9 lbs 15 ozs and 23 1/4 inches long he was about 23% heavy hopefully this heavy percentage carries over to the pumpkins as well this year. 1236: This Pumpkin Just continues to grow, This pumpkin is humongous, way, way beyond my expectations This thing doesn't even need to go heavy if it just goes to chart that would be phenomenal!!! For the 20th of Sept. the plant still looks Excellent, Still packing on the pounds slowly. Saturday, September 18 View Page Some Giant Sunnys with the patch Hound Saturday, September 18 View Page 1544: This Fruit continues to grow at a slow rate. As you can see it has a very wide and low pancake shape. This one has the looks of a heavy one, solid like concrete. Plant still looks great! The 20th of sept. and I am still getting loads of new growth and pumpkin sets which I pop off as soon as see them. Saturday, September 18 View Page -----Rear View Patch Shot----- 1544 to the left, 1236 just peaking up in the center, and my 765 from last year to the right. The 765 is starting to orange up and still packing on pounds very, very, slowly, I let a couple others set on this plant for shape and color reference. Saturday, September 18 View Page 1004 I was able to set another on the 1004 plant about 15 or so days ago. This plant produced the 407 GUNS UOW 2010 which I took up to the county fair in early august. Tuesday, October 5 View Page Rear Shot of the 1236: The 1236 grew really good for me this year, exceeded my expectations for the year. The final ott on it is: 173-117-105.5 = 295.5 ott est 1293 lbs. This girl is loaded up for my first weigh-off of the year... Barnsville At harvest the plant was still in great condition, it looked like a early august plant not a late sept. plant. The stump are on this plant was very small and the vines were just of avg size. Tuesday, October 5 View Page Well the 1236 made it to barnesville just fine, didn't leave that way but I will fill you in with those details later... TOP 3 King Pumpkins at barnesville Tuesday, October 5 View Page The 1236 Takes 3rd place at barnesville and is now the: 1211 GUNS 10 (1236 Harp x 1004 Mohr). The 1211 Guns is a very tall fruit with a over the top width of 117 pretty darn tall, it went about 82lbs light but I am still as happy as a pig in sh$% with it weighing in at 1211. I prob. played a role in it going light letting up on on it the past 3 weeks, I could not sleep at night with this thing in the patch I don't know how those guys do it that have 1600lbrs in the patch. All in All the 1236 exceeded my expectations and gave me a new PB smashing my old PB. Thanks a lot for the seed!!! Tuesday, October 5 View Page I would also like to mention the coloring on the 1211 was white in front and starting to orange up in the rear as you can see in the pics. Tuesday, October 5 View Page The following week...... Next stop..... Canfield! The largest grouping of pumpkins 1400,1500, & 1600 lbs pumpkins in the WORLD! Tuesday, October 5 View Page as% end of the monsters. Tuesday, October 5 View Page The fruit I brought to canfield was the 1544 it was estimated at about 946. it is a Very wide low fruit. bottom right with the white foam under it. Tuesday, October 5 View Page The 1544 ended up weighing in at 944 lbs so right on chart, it is now the: 944 GUNS 10 (1544 Revier x 1236 Harp) You have to love the genetics on this one! I think I will definitely plant this one next year!! Thanks For the Seed!!! This one would of prob. grew a whole lot larger if it weren't for a stem split on day 30. we got bombed with a couple inches of rain a few days before and this girl was packing on 39lbs a day for the past 3 days prior to the split, after the split it went down to the high teens and stayed that way. Tuesday, October 5 View Page My Long Gourd finished 2end at canfield at 111 5/8 inches. I was very happy with this! The 111 5/8 was grown from the 111 lovelace and crossed with my own seed from 08 the 95.5 Guns. Tuesday, October 5 View Page I still have one more pumpkin lurking in the brush I plan on taking somewhere. Tuesday, October 12 View Page Picked up my fall amendments, I plan on clearing the patch out, putting the amendments down, shovel turning the patch and getting a cover crop down within the next 2 weeks.